Aug.. 25 Tanglewood gala tops off a season of concerts honoring Leonard Bernstein

By R. Scott Reedy, Correspondent

Thursday

Aug 16, 2018 at 3:00 AM

The Boston Symphony Orchestra will conclude its season-long centennial celebration of Leonard Bernstein on Aug. 25, the Lawrence native’s 100th birthday, with a gala concert at Tanglewood, where the legendary composer and conductor’s influence continues to be felt to this day.

A protégé of Tanglewood founder Serge Koussevitzky, the BSO's music director from 1924 to 1949, Bernstein was active at Tanglewood from his 1940 arrival until his final concerts conducting the BSO and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra in 1990.

He retired from conducting on Oct. 9, 1990, and passed away five days later of a heart attack at age 72.

“Bernstein had a half-century long relationship with Tanglewood and may even have played a bigger role there than Koussevitzky, because he started as a student in the first Tanglewood Music Center class in 1940, and went on to become one of its most celebrated faculty members and champions,” said Boston Pops Conductor Keith Lockhart by telephone recently.

Bernstein’s status as a towering artistic figure of the 20th century will be celebrated with a program hosted by six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald and featuring Lockhart along with fellow conductors Andris Nelsons, BSO music director, Boston Pops Conductor Laureate John Williams, National Symphony Orchestra Conductor Laureate Christoph Eschenbach, and Michael Tilson Thomas, music director of the San Francisco Symphony and artistic director of the New World Symphony.

For many conductors, including Lockhart, Bernstein was an important role model.

“I never met Bernstein, but I grew up in New York and he was my hometown conductor when he was with the New York Philharmonic. His influence on American musicians was huge because he was the first American-born conductor of an American orchestra.

“By having one foot in classical and one foot in popular music, and being enormously successful in both, Bernstein made that career approach acceptable and opened up easier cross-over opportunities for other artists,” explained Lockhart.

The concert will feature performances by classical music stars – several of whom performed with Bernstein – Midori, Thomas Hampson, Isabel Leonard, Yo-Yo Ma, Nadine Sierra, Kian Soltani and Susan Graham, plus Broadway’s McDonald, Jessica Vosk and Tony Yazbeck, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus with the BSO, Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, and musicians from the New York, Vienna and Israel Philharmonics, and the Pacific Music and Schleswig-Holstein Festivals.

The first half of the program will showcase Bernstein’s own music, including “Candide,” “Mass,” “Serenade” and “West Side Story.” The second will focus on Bernstein’s influence as a conductor, champion of other conductors, and inspiration for young people and include Gustav Mahler’s “Des Knaben Wunderhorn,” Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring,” a new work by Williams, and the finale of Mahler’s “Resurrection Symphony.”

Overseen by Los Angeles-based director James Darrah, the concert will be recorded for “Great Performances” and is scheduled to have its U.S. broadcast premiere Dec. 28 on PBS.

“We didn’t want this to feel like an awards show. The goal instead is to provide a really exciting musical evening that gives you a meaningful glimpse at the various sides of Leonard Bernstein, the artist," explained Darrah by telephone last week.

“Rather than just a sampler, we want the show to have a structure that is both celebratory and exciting,” Darrah said.

To that end, Stephen Wadsworth – librettist for Bernstein’s 1983 opera, “A Quiet Place” – is writing short speeches for McDonald to deliver throughout the program.

“Instead of Audra giving just basic introductions to each piece, Stephen is crafting brief remarks that will provide a unique portrait of Bernstein as a composer, conductor and collaborator,” said Darrah, who studied under Wadsworth at the Juilliard School.

For Lockhart, this is the latest in a line of musical salutes to Bernstein’s centennial in which he has taken part, including three of this past spring’s Boston Pops concerts and recent Bernstein-themed concerts as a guest conductor with Norway’s Stavanger Symphony Orchestra and the Czech Philharmonic in Prague.

In his capacity as artistic director of the Brevard Music Center Summer Institute and Festival in North Carolina, Lockhart also recently presided over Brevard’s season-long Leonard Bernstein Festival.

“For me, this concert at Tanglewood feels like a culmination of everything I’ve done so far this year. It’s a pinnacle of all the various celebrations, too, because it is happening on his actual birthday, in a place that meant so much to him.”

Having conducted his share of music from “On The Town,” “Candide” and “The Mass” in recent months, Lockhart is eager to try something different in Lenox, where he will conduct “Kaddish 2” from Bernstein’s Symphony 3.

“It’s funny, because of all the Bernstein I’ve done, this one’s new to me, which makes it really refreshing to take on,” said Lockhart. “I’m looking forward to plumbing this piece after so many takes of ‘The Mass.’ ”

His upcoming assignment, which features soloist Sierra and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, is not the only thing that Lockhart is looking forward to about the Bernstein Celebration.

“It’s going to be a star-studded event to be sure, and conductors rarely get to meet other conductors so it is a pleasure to get an opportunity like this," Lockhart said. "In general, I don’t usually go to a lot of concerts, because they’re what I do for a living.

“In this case, though, I will be checking everybody else out. This concert will be worth watching from beginning to end. And I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”